Wood garage door - cable has detached from bottom (opener, steel, outside)

[greg42]

I'm going to go digging for other sources of info soon but appreciate any thoughts here.

Got home yesterday and garage door wouldn't go up more than a few inches with the opener. Went in the front door and around and looked, saw cable dangling and slack spring and went "Oh, the spring broke". This happened several years ago on the other door and I was familiar with that. Not something I wanted to do but something I knew I could fix.

Now this morning I looked at it again for a minute and discovered something different. The spring appears to be intact but the cable that goes around the pulley and down to the base of the door has come detached from the base. Uh-oh. This seems like it could be a bigger problem. The doors are wood and about 30 years old I assume (orig to house, given condition can't imagine they were ever replaced).

Is it possible for me as someone reasonably handy but far from pro to fix this? At first glance it seems like it might be a little more complicated than swapping a spring. I haven't examined it that closely (it's on the outer corner so harder to see than the one in the middle of garage) but I'm thinking it's possible that the door itself has deteriorated too much there and whatever attachment has pulled free.

At least it happened with the car OUTSIDE rather than having it stuck inside! LOL

[chet everett]

If you have replaced the spring the task of restringing the cable is not any more risky. You need to examine the door. If the reason the cable come dettached you need to determin if the wood is soft and rotted. That would require replanting at least the bottom panel. If the wood is sound but the bolt pulled out you might be able to get a steel mending plate.

[nybbler]

Depends on how it has broken. If the cable itself broke, or the attachment at the end, you can just replace the cable (it's called a lift cable); I would replace both sides at the same time. The metal piece that it attaches to is called a bottom lift bracket; that can be replaced too (not necessary to replace both if the other is in good condition), though if the wood has rotted it might be door replacement time.

[greg42]

Well, turns out it's not the door that is rotted but the lift cable! The loop where it was looped around the peg on the lift bracket was broken clean through I now see. Rust. It looks like the plate might be sound enough to keep using for now (I do think door replacement is in my future before I am ready to leave this house) so I'm going to try just replacing the lift cables and see how that goes.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction guys.